Two sludge metal musicians from Westminster, South Carolina who call themselves COFFIN TORTURE come together to make a big sound with a mix of various instruments on their recent EP "Blennoid."

What makes this EP interesting is all of the different instruments used and unique sounds created by this sludge duo. I wish some of those more unique sounds should have been used more often. They really could have taken advantage of having such skills and ideas. I wasn't completely sold on some of the vocals, but that could have also been a production issue. I thought Thorfinn and Blind Samson seemed like good musicians with creative ideas. I mean, who else lists a sword and a death whistle as one of their instruments? My favorite song is "Budo," which features this really uncommon instrumentation (for sludge metal, anyway) and I would have just loved to hear more of that throughout the EP and the song itself. If you have these talents, why not show them off more?

The songs are longer than average, but after a while they definitely seemed to drone on a little bit, and I think the addition of more of their eccentric instruments. I'm still trying to figure out how a sword is used as an instrument. Do they sword fight into a microphone? What am I missing? Things do pick up quite a bit more with the up-tempo title track "Blennoid." Things get downright crazy on the last song "Yateveo," which opens with a blood curdling scream. But that's, of course, been done before. I do appreciate that they've sped things up for these last two songs, because I caught myself starting to daydream instead of listen. And this last song is just over seven and a half minutes long, so I'm glad it doesn't feel like it's slow poking around.

Where this EP really suffers is the production. It's never a bad idea to spend good money paying someone qualified to make an album sound its best, or to learn the craft well and do it to the best of your ability. Plenty of bands self-record and mix and master their own work or have friends who do it fairly cheap to where it sounds better produced. You can be an excellent musician and songwriter, but if your album is produced badly, it's just not going to sound that great no matter what probably. It's a very important step. I think I would have liked this better if more effort had been put into the mixing and mastering, because it sounds pretty muddled and staticy as is, unfortunately. It kinds of overshadows the talent. Everything needed to be cleaned up a little bit more, even if it is a sludge album.